Music For Listeners 05/01/2010

1) The Beastie Boys-"Country Mike's Theme"  From the CD 'Anthology'.
2) Buck Owens-"Act Naturally" From the CD 'Greatest Hits'.
3) Blur-"Fool's Day" From the 2010 Record Store Day vinyl 7" single for "Fools Day".
4) Fanfarlo-"What Makes You Think You're the One" From the 2010 Record Store Day vinyl 7" single for "You Are One of the Few Outsiders Who Understand Us".
5) Avi Buffalo-"What's In It For?" From the brand new CD 'Avi Buffalo'.
6) Frankie and the Heartstrings-"Fragile" From the 2010 Record Store Day vinyl 7" single for "Fragile"/"Hunger".
7) Foals-"This Orient" From the brand new vinyl 7" single for "This Orient".
8) The Futureheads-"The Chaos" From the brand new CD 'The Chaos'.
9) Malibu Shark Attack-"Jeff Van Fossen (We Should Play This Party)" Unreleased demo straight from the band.
10) Let's Wrestle-"I'm So Lazy" From the 2010 U.S. Record Store Day vinyl 7" split single (with The Love Language) for "I'm So Lazy"/"Brittany's Back".
11) The Spinto Band-"Prune Twins" From the Amnesty International music charity project "Peace".
12) James Yuill-"On Your Own (Radio Edit)" From the brand new CD single for "On Your Own".
13) The Radio Dept.-"Domestic Scene" From the brand new CD 'Clinging To A Scheme'.
14) Dr. Dog-"Where'd All the Time Go?" From the brand new CD 'Shame Shame'.
15) Brilliant Colors-"Never Mine" From the vinyl 7" single for "Never Mine".
16) Transmography-"Car Commercial" From the vinyl 12" single for "Car Commercial".
17) Wild Moccasins-"Zylophone" From the forthcoming CD 'Skin Collision Past'.
18) The Hawks (of Holy Rosary)-"Kansas City" From the CD 'Songs for Father Bernie'.
19) Demitasse-"Fambly" Unreleased demo straight from the band.
20) James-"Crazy" From the brand new CD mini-album 'The Night Before'.
21) Two Door Cinema Club-"Cigarettes In The Theatre" From the brand new CD 'Tourist History'.
22) Kate Nash-"Kiss That Grrrl" From the brand new CD 'My Best Friend Is You'.
23) The Fall-"Cowboy George" From the brand new CD 'Your Future Our Clutter'.
24) Your Twenties-"Blue Jeans (Blur Cover)" From our friends over at RCRD LBL.com.
25) Villagers-"Becoming A Jackal" From the forthcoming CD 'Becoming A Jackal'.
26) The Courteeners-"The Opener" From the CD 'Falcon'.
27) Standard Fare-"Wow" From the CD 'The Noyelle Beat'.
28) Junip-"Rope and Summit" From the CD EP 'Rope and Summit'.
29) The Middle East-"The Darkest Side" From the CD 'The Recordings of The Middle East'.
30) Laurie Anderson-"Let X=X (Live)" From the CD box set 'United States Live Parts I-IV'.
26) "The Mid-Morning Recording"               "Weird Al" Yankovic-'Dare To Be Stupid'
Certainly "weird". I don't think a lot of people knew what to think of "Weird Al" Yankovic when he broke out on MTV with his parodies, or modern day "filks", as it were. He has done some great "filks" in his time, and this album is most likely, all around, his best collection of work. Not only are the parodies on this recording great, but so are the "original" pieces done in the style of other artists. The title track alone is enough to make a Devo fan spit out their Cheerios. "One More Minute" has always been a Doo-Wop favorite that got me through many a night working at KLRN playing Doo-Wop music shows multiple times over. Certainly, some of the big hit songs of the 80's and 90's wouldn't even be tolerable to hear these days if you didn't have those alternate lyrics somewhere in the back of your brain. Now that this album is twenty-five years old, it's time to really ask, Do you think "Weird Al" is and has always been unoriginal, or he is another well-rounded comedian and musician, who knew exactly what he was doing? I would certainly put him in the later category. Dr Demento has always put him in that category as well. His albums are one huge level of his career certainly, and even though I've only seen video, his live output looks to be high energy and incredibly fun. Also, his music aside, I also really love his movie "UHF". It has always been a indie-comedy favorite, and apparently towards the end of this month, Tim League, (who seems to always have great ideas), from the original Alamo Drafthouse is showing "UHF" at Austin's Paramount Theater with "Weird Al" live in person. How cool is that?!?!? Maybe he'll break out his accordion and play a tune. I've heard Weird Al's father knew a thing or two about the instrument. :D If you don't like Weird Al then maybe you should sit with Prince, as he never let Yankovic do a parody of one of his tunes. Maybe the Minnesotan doesn't have a sense of humor. Of course for a long time, if you didn't have a song parodied by Yankovic, then your song just wasn't that popular. All the songs he parodied are still heard today, but it is rather unfortunate that the Yankovic versions are barely even heard by this generation. "Don't ask 'em to dinner, or breakfast, or brunch. Cause girls, they wanna have lunch."
Michael-MFL
27) James-"Sayonara"  From the CD 'Wah-Wah'.